The present invention relates to a new and improved construction of a projectile having a payload, first and second brake systems at one side of the payload, a first explosive charge and a second explosive charge separated from one another by a drive disk and arranged at the other side of the payload and surrounded by a projectile jacket or casing.
With prior art projectiles of this type there is carried as the payload a pyrotechnic or flare body and as the brake system there are employed parachutes. Such type projectile is disclosed for instance in U.S. Pat. No. 3,834,312. With this construction the flare body or assemblage is surrounded by a cylindrical container or casing which, viewed in the direction of motion, is open at the rear. At the front this container is closed and carries delay and explosive charges. At the flare body there merges towards the rear a lengthwise divided tubular section or piece which is detachably connected with the flare body and forms a container for the main parachute. The flare composition is surrounded at its periphery by a total of three jackets if there is also taken into account the projectile jacket. One of these jackets exclusively serves for interconnecting the lengthwise divided tubular section with the flare body.
It is a drawback to package the flare body in an unnecessarily large number of containers, since such can only be accomplished by reducing the diameter of the flare body inasmuch as the outer diameter of a projectile is fixed. Such small diameter changes lead, however, to proportionately large changes in the cross-sectional area, since such is proportional to the square of the diameter.
In order to obtain as good as possible illumination of a terrain, it is important that the cross-sectional area of the flare body is as large as possible since such only burns at its end surface.